Medical Marijuana Saved 6-Year-Old From Daily Seizures, Says Dad

Imagine, if you, will that your 6-year-old son has suffered with debilitating seizures daily, since he was four months old. Despite all the doctors you have taken him to, and the amount of medications he’s been on, nothing has worked. And he takes 22 pills a day!

You, like any other parent, would probably feel hopeless, helpless, and desperate. So if you found something that helped alleviate this little precious boy’s suffering, you’d likely jump at the chance.

That is exactly what Jason David did when he discovered that medicinal marijuana might help his son, Jayden, who suffers from a rare form of epilepsy called Dravet’s syndrome. This disease left little Jayden unable to “walk or eat solid food and he had been rushed to the hospital in their hometown of Oakland more than 40 times.”

Jason gave his son liquid marijuana through the Harborside Health Center medical marijuana clinic in Oakland, California, and says the results were “dramatic.”

Jayden was able to make it a whole day seizure free for the first time in his life, and run, jump, and play with other children.

Some doctors and experts warn against using medicinal marijuana saying the risk of the children becoming addicted is too great. My stance is to consider the quality of life. If it helps the child lead a normal life, then who is to say that medicinal marijuana poses a greater threat than a catalog of pills ingested into his body everyday.

Jason not only feels he made the right decision, he wishes others would follow his lead:

“What I worry about are the thousands and thousands of children like Jayden who are suffering unnecessarily, who I know we could help. The only thing separating them from help are outdated rules that need to be changed.”

As the mother of a child with chronic illnesses that have interrupted and impeded her life for the past six years, if medicinal marijuana was available and might help her feel better on a daily basis, I would consider it. Everyday as I watch my child swallow pill after pill, I consider the long-term ramifications on her young body. Painkillers are perhaps more addictive than any drug (and certainly marijuana), yet doctors don’t blink any eye when prescribing them to a child. I always wonder what they think the chances are for a child who feels sick and depleted everyday to eventually turn to drugs to drown their physical and psychological pain.

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